The hunt begins: Somerset County hunters fare well on first day

"I might have heard a half dozen shots today and one of them was mine," said Somerset hunter David Pyle as he posed for a photograph Monday morning with a 10-point buck.

Elsewhere, hunters reported "war-like" conditions more befitting of a county with a whopping 75,000 antlerless deer licenses.

"I was ready to go home and call it quits," said Shane Shaffer of Jennerstown. "I was fed up with all the hunters."

Luckily for Shaffer, he stuck around long enough to find himself face to face with a nice eight-point buck.

Shaffer was one of 39 hunters who reported buck kills Monday to the Daily American, leaving newspaper reporters and game commission officials alike to speculate on the size of the day's harvest. The state's two-week rifle deer season began Monday and continues until Dec. 11, giving hunters ample opportunity to break the record of 517,000 deer taken during the 2002-03 hunting season.

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"We're expecting the harvest to be anywhere between 450,000 and 500,000 deer this year," said Jerry Feaser, a game commission spokesman.

As always, the weather played a role in Monday's turnout. Feaser said the weather was cold enough to keep deer and hunters moving, but not cold enough - or humid enough - to produce the deer-tracking snow that so many hunters covet.

"If we would have had a light covering of snow, it would have helped the deer stand out a little bit better for the hunters to see,' he said.

At Miller Run Custom Butchering near Central City, owner Gary May said the weather may have been to blame for a slow start to the day.

"On cold days, guys have a tendency to parade the deer around a little bit before bringing them in," he said.

Last year, the shop along Old Schoolhouse Road processed about 500 deer.

"It's a little slow right now, but if you call me at 8 p.m., I may tell you that I don't even have time to talk to you," May said with a laugh.

Last year, about 1 million licensed hunters harvested 465,000 deer in Pennsylvania. The number included 3,770 antlered deer and 8,950 antlerless deer in Somerset County, according to Pennsylvania Game Commission records.

The game commission won't have final numbers for 2004-05 until after hunters return their harvest report cards and game commission officials complete a survey of meat processors and butchers, Feaser said. Typically, those numbers are made available in March.